Bambina
by Tomoyasu Hotei
from Bambina (single)

Stepped by Xythar for DDRExtreme.co.uk ReVisited (90's Division)

This is one of Tomoyasu Hotei's most famous songs, from 98 or 99 or something. It has been featured in several music games as well, such as Guitarfreaks/Drummania and Ouendan 2. Seemingly however it has not been on any main albums (just re-compilations) so it has a CD title from its self-titled single instead.

I feel I probably need to explain a few things in this readme that I might get flak for otherwise. Firstly, yes the song really is 267bpm (267.49 to be precise). We can debate about the frequency of snare hits and what this does for perceived BPM among different people as much as we like but the bottom line is that Konami agrees with me, which means I'm right. So there! :P

Second, you may not like my song cut, but I honestly think it's the best one this song can have. It includes all the important parts - verse, chorus, and that awesome solo (which actually has the best opportunities for fun steps I think). The fact that it ends after that instead of repeating the chorus and going into the ending or whatever just cuts down on repetition! Really, the full version of the song actually ends in almost the exact same way - it just has this drawn out ending breakdown first before going back to the bit that comes right after the solo and fading out there. The ending would be annoying to sync and not that fun to step, so it goes. So in short, the song would end with a fadeout no matter how I cut it (since the full version fades out) and this way I get to include all the best parts and not have it be annoyingly long. QED.

I decided to rate heavy an 8 because it's not really that complex or 8th heavy. It's just kind of tiring, but really that's nothing new. Standard is a 7 (why do my standard steps keep ending up only a little bit easier than heavy it is pretty annoying) and light is a 3. Beginner didn't really seem necessary in this case.

Graphics are made from screencaps of the video, nothing new there. The video itself is available as bonus footage on Tomoyasu Hotei's "All Time Super Best Clips" DVD, which I bought just so I could rip the video for this file. Yeah I know.

You can read about Tomoyasu Hotei on Wikipedia if you like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomoyasu_Hotei

Pretty interesting in parts. Man that guy is tall, especially for the Japanese.

I decided to write the name in romaji on the banner because it looks better that way when considering the overall motif. Stepmania automatically converts it to kanji on the song wheel though no matter what I do because it's a jerk. Either take out the entry that's doing this in your Translation.dat file or just turn off native language display (F9 I think) if the mismatch between song wheel and banner bothers you! It is not my fault.

I guess that's it. Don't let me down!

--Xythar
